I must, very briefly, tell you about the wondrous fried chicken at Mama Lan’s in Brixton Village; the best I’ve had anywhere in a while. The skin has the kind of crunch one always wants fried chicken to have, but it so rarely does; I’d kill for the recipe. I do manage to find out a few of the ingredients from the waitress; star anise, coriander seeds, garlic, sesame seeds and to serve, loads of chilli oil, which they make themselves. This is borderline perfect fried chicken; it’s sweet, it’s spicy and it doesn’t so much hit the spot as take a massive run up and face plant it. Five pieces for £4.50.

The dumplings are worth a quick mention; they’re not anything amazing but I am rather fond of the wood ear mushroom and Chinese leaf pot stickers. The king prawn and water chestnut steamed version are also tasty. A couple of rounds of these, dunked in Chinkiang vinegar and soy bust right through a hangover. Not before I’ve had my chicken fix, though.

17 thoughts on “The Fried Chicken at Mama Lan’s, Brixton”

Went with my partner and a friend for lunch on Thursday about 1:40pm. Partner ordered prawn dumplings; friend and I ordered the pork. Partners dumplings arrived about 15 mins later.. my friend and I waited, and waited.. and waited.. only to be told about 8 mins later that the cook had prepared all prawn dumplings for us by mistake and we would have to wait for our correct order to be cooked. By the time our pork dumplings arrived another 12 minutes later my partner had finished eating his (his were already cold by that time and not as enjoyable)! Very poor service! Could at least have offered us the prawn dumplings instead so we didn’t have to wait so long.. but no, we were told we just had to wait for ours to be made and cooked. Dumplings were AMAZING, best we’d ever eaten! Sadly, although we’d have liked to try their other offerings, we decided not to have anything else as we felt so let down by the poor service and long wait and didn’t feel confident enough to order anything else from the menu. I know everything is prepared fresh to order but this is still no excuse. No offer of any extra (not even the prawn dumplings that had been prepared in error..) Shame, as our first experience of this otherwise wonderful eatery was tarnished by poor service and poor lack of judgement. Paid £20 (incl begrudged tip) for our dumplings and 1 cup of Oolong Tea. Great dumplings Mama Lan.. but we felt really let down by our first experience.